


Crime & Punishment

by ImprobableDreams900



Series: Eden!verse [2]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Coffee Shop, Gen, Heaven, Torture, angelic headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-11
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2018-08-30 08:04:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8525245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImprobableDreams900/pseuds/ImprobableDreams900
Summary: Kazariel didn’t know where she’d gone wrong. Well, actually, she did. She’d had the misfortune to run into a spot of trouble, and its name was Aziraphale.Alternatively: what happens when you let the snake-eyed demon escape on your watch, and lose your flaming sword in the process





	1. A Study in Ambivalence

**Author's Note:**

> All right, so this took way too long to post considering I finished writing it months ago. 
> 
> Just to clarify, this is set during my other fic in this series (A Memory of Eden), specifically during chapters 2 and 3, and with a bit at the end that's concurrent with chapter 23. If you haven't read A Memory of Eden, I caution that this probably won't make a lick of sense, but, hey, live your dreams.
> 
> I also made this snazzy infographic explaining the choirs of angels in this universe, for your viewing pleasure: http://improbabledreams900.tumblr.com/image/153023321878 . If you're too cool for infographics, know that "thrones," "dominions," and "cherubs" are choirs (ie. ranks) of angels, like "principalities."
> 
> Thanks to doctortreklock for editing, as always.

Kazariel didn’t know where she’d gone wrong.

Well, actually, she did.

She’d had the misfortune to run into a spot of trouble, and its name was Aziraphale.

Kazariel slumped forward against the table in front of her, leaning on her elbows and staring gloomily into her cup of coffee.

It was a particularly excellent type, something called an iced latte, and there were bits of chocolate stirred in. In fact, it was her favourite drink so far on Earth (a lot of the humans drank something called “tea,” though she hadn’t found it to her liking). But even the prospect of drinking the whole latte wasn't cheering her up today.

Kazariel turned her head to look over at the bookshop opposite the chocolate and coffee shop, strands of her long red hair spilling over her shoulder from where she’d tucked them behind her ear.

The bookshop looked as it had every day for the past eighteen years: dark, untouched, and utterly abandoned.

 

~~***~~

 

_Eighteen Years Ago_

 

Kazariel wasn’t present when the demon responsible for corrupting and bewitching Heaven’s representative to Earth was captured. She did, however, see him from a distance as he was led to Michael by the two of her brothers responsible for catching him.

The demon held his head high, and as he passed by she saw that he was dressed in some sort of slim black outfit while a pair of dark, slightly reflective discs she thought were called glasses perched on his nose. Kazariel’s eyes, however, were drawn inexorably to the fiend’s huge wings. They were so very similar to her own, but each feather was a gleaming jet black, marking their owner as one of the Adversary. Even from a distance, she could see that each feather was perfectly groomed, and the light shimmered off their combined ebony surfaces in a dazzling cascade of colour. Kazariel hadn’t personally encountered a demon in over four millennia, but this one’s wings were unlike anything she had ever seen.

After Michael pronounced judgement on the fiend, her supervisor and the captain of her company of Heavenly guards, a dominion named Zadkiel, summoned her and several of her brothers and sisters to an impromptu meeting. Zadkiel explained that the captured demon was to be compelled to divulge his wicked secrets, starting with how he had bewitched their brother stationed on Earth. Samkiel, Heaven’s most righteous angel and also a dominion, had been assigned to carry out the compulsion, and Michael himself had directed Zadkiel to put his best cherubim on guard duty, to ensure the prisoner did not try to escape.

Kazariel had always felt that Zadkiel liked her a little more than the other, perhaps slightly less dedicated, guards, and was therefore unsurprised when she was assigned the honour of the first shift.

Within the hour, she had reported to the small, unassuming building that had been selected as the site of the demon’s compulsion. It had once been an armoury, as attested to by the heavy, solid door and thick walls. The building had been situated a little too close to the edge of Heaven for Michael’s liking, though, and the weapons had long ago been moved to a more secure location, leaving the small, one-room armoury disused for the better part of five millennia. It seemed it was finding a use at last.

Kazariel had only waited outside the armoury for ten minutes when she spotted Samkiel approaching on the white-bricked road, trailed by five figures arranged in a cross shape. The four on the outside were immediately identifiable as angels by their shining white wings; the feathers of the figure in the centre, on the other hand, were jet black.

As they approached, Kazariel noticed that the demon’s hands were bound in heavy silver manacles, and a chain led from each of his wrists to the angels standing to either side of him.

When the convoy was still five metres away, Kazariel snapped smartly to attention, turned on her heel, and set about unlocking the seven locks keeping the door sealed. When she had finished with the seventh, she pulled the heavy door open and stood aside.

Without sparing her so much as a glance, Samkiel stepped past her and inside, holding up a hand briefly to indicate that the others should wait outside as he inspected the space.

Kazariel returned to standing at attention, though she was now facing her brothers and their demonic prisoner, and she couldn't resist watching the latter out of the corner of her eye.

He was standing straight and proud, mouth set in an unconcerned, lopsided smile. His eyes were still hidden behind the dark glasses, but the line of his shoulders was relaxed. If it hadn’t been for the way the fiend’s perfectly groomed wings were tucked tightly behind him, or the uncomfortable twitching of his fingers in the heavy manacles, she might have mistaken his assumed nonchalance for reality.

“This is all really very unnecessary, you know,” the demon said after a moment, with an almost apologetic smile. “I honestly don’t know whatever it is you want me to confess, and I’m sure we could all just save a lot of time and bother by realising that now.”

“Be silent, demon,” snapped the angel on the left, hands tightening around his end of the chain. “Your silver tongue speaks only lies.”

The demon laughed, the sound nowhere as near to the spine-chilling noise Kazariel had been expecting. Instead, it was…normal. Almost pleasant.

 _“Only_ lies?” the fiend asked, raising an elegant eyebrow and flashing a winning smile. “So if I say I’m a demon, does that make me an angel? If _everything_ I say is a lie—”

This time the angel silenced him with a swift punch to the abdomen. The demon gasped and doubled over involuntarily, wings half-flaring out behind him as his chains clanked together loudly.

“Stop,” Kazariel said sharply. A heartbeat later all five heads turned to look at her, and Kazariel realised with a belated pang of horror that she’d spoken aloud. To cover her sudden embarrassment, she pulled herself up to her full height, cloaking herself in her rank and arranging her features into a severe expression. “The prisoner is only to be compelled by the righteous one,” she said stiffly, casually planting her hand on the hilt of her sword. “That honour was awarded him by Michael himself. Remember yourselves.”

Luckily, the other angels—pulled from the ranks of the thrones, judging by the insignias on their shoulders—accepted this logic, as well as realising that she outranked them. The one who’d delivered the blow looked appropriately apologetic, stepping back into his proper place and flexing his fingers around the silver chain.

Within their ranks, the demon had straightened up and was looking at her from behind his dark glasses, expression unreadable.

A unpleasant prickling feeling crept up the back of Kazariel’s neck and she felt her feathers start to bristle automatically. She felt... _unclean_ in a way that she hadn’t for a very long time, and the sensation was far from reassuring.

“He will get what is coming to him in time,” she added coldly, tearing her eyes from the demon and fixing her gaze directly in front of her.

A moment later, Samkiel returned from the shadows of the armoury and nodded gravely at the four thrones. They moved forward, taking the demon in their midst with them. She wasn’t sorry to see him go.

Kazariel remained by the open door, back to the disused armoury, and scanned the emerald hills. It wasn’t long before her strict military stance relaxed slightly and her eyes wandered to the crystal sky, sweeping her gaze along its brilliant length as she listened to the clank of chains from inside the building.

“Come on, now, is this really necessary?” The voice came from behind her, and she recognised it as the demon’s. He still sounded remarkably calm, but she thought she detected a hint of well-disguised trepidation.

There was no response from the angels, only the sound of two pieces of metal being scraped past each other and another sharp protest from the demon. “What do you think I’m going to do, miracle myself a bloody hellhound?”

Kazariel fixed her eyes on the horizon and tried to ignore the low cracking noise and the sound of chains being pulled tight. Though she knew the demon deserved whatever Samkiel had in store for him for his deeds against Heaven and her brothers, there might have been a very small, _very_ unimportant part of her that...maybe...just a little...didn’t necessarily _like_ it.

The demon let out a yelp and suddenly the sounds of a scuffle were floating past her.

Kazariel turned quickly and glanced inside the building, eyes adjusting to the darkness as she raked her gaze across the armoury’s interior, checking to see if her brothers needed any assistance subduing the prisoner. The demon, missing his dark glasses now and bound with a silver collar around his neck, was against the far wall. His arms were pulled above his head by the manacle chains, which had been fed through a ring attached to the wall near the ceiling. The fiend, however, had wrapped his hands around the chains and was holding himself up that way; his legs were curled beneath him and he was kicking viciously at anyone who tried to come near, his entire weight hanging on his bound wrists.

The nearest of Kazariel’s brothers lunged forward and received a square kick to his jaw. The next angel tried to grab onto the fiend’s foot, but his fingers met only air.

“Come and get it, you haloed bassstardsss,” the demon hissed, adjusting his grip where his hands were wrapped around the chains.

The two remaining thrones exchanged grim glances and closed in, hands at the ready and wings unfurled.

While the fiend was distracted with kicking at his next two challengers, Kazariel watched as Samkiel slowly moved closer, staying very close to the wall and out of the demon’s view. Then his hands flashed out and grabbed onto the leading edge of one of the fiend’s gleaming black wings, pulling it open.

“Oi!” the demon shouted, his attention swinging quickly to the more senior angel. The thrones caught on to what Samkiel was doing and moved to help, retreating out of range of the demon’s kicks and instead approaching from the side. They took the leading edge of the demon’s wing from Samkiel, yanking it open further as the dominion walked out of Kazariel’s line of sight.

A moment later, Samkiel returned with a hammer and a massive silver stake. The latter must have been something like three inches across and nine inches long, and Kazariel realised with an abrupt, involuntary shiver exactly what Samkiel planned on doing with it.

The demon appeared to reach the realisation at the same time, eyes widening in shock and then narrowing as his feet dropped back to the ground, chains clinking hollowly as his weight sagged back onto the floor. “You sssanctimoniousss _bassstardsss,”_ the fiend hissed. “Don’t you bloody _dare.”_

It took all four of the thrones to get the demon’s wing fully extended and keep it that way. The fiend was struggling viciously now, pulling at his manacles and trying to twist away. His wing thrashed back and forth, trying to wrestle its way free, beautiful black feathers flashing back and forth in the demon’s urgency to escape. After several long seconds, the angels managed to get a good grip on the fiend’s wing, and they slammed it hard against the wall and held it there.

“Oh, you are _really_ going to regret this,” the demon growled, but Kazariel could hear the fear in his voice as he fought to free himself.

Samkiel raised the massive silver pin and placed it tip-first against the leading joint of the demon’s wing, at the junction of several delicate bones. He raised the hammer.

Kazariel couldn’t watch. Her own wings smarted in sympathy as she turned quickly, moving her gaze back to the beauty of Heaven.

There was the sharp snap of metal on metal and the demon screamed.

If birds had lived in Heaven, any nearby would have cried out and taken to the sky. Kazariel closed her eyes.

There was another metallic crash and the demon’s scream jumped an octave and broke.

By the third strike the fiend was gasping for breath. “Pleassse—Go—Sssa—I don’t—I don’t _know_ _anything.”_

“Now, that’s simply untrue,” Samkiel said levelly.

“No, I—” The demon’s voice failed him and he lapsed into rasping gasps.

“Would you like to tell us how you brought the principality Aziraphale under your thrall?” Samkiel’s voice asked sensibly.

The demon hissed. “I—I didn’t—you bloody _bassstardsss—”_

“Get the other wing.”

Kazariel waited for the demon to give up or beg for mercy. Instead, he fell silent, and after another long moment she heard him scream again as the sound of hammering echoed in the small building.

By the end, the demon had returned to gasping for breath, the sound raw and hoarse.

“Speak now, demon, if you care to limit your well-deserved punishment.”

There was a broken gasp and then the demon spoke, voice rasping. “I—I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

“Excellent.”

Kazariel kept her eyes on the hills as the four thrones who had escorted the demon there walked back out of the armoury. Once they had passed her, she turned smartly and moved to shut the door, leaving Samkiel to his work.

As she pushed the heavy door closed, she saw the demon sagging in his chains, both wings swept open and pinned to the wall behind him. Fresh red streaks were already crawling down his ordered, gleaming feathers, destroying that fragile beauty. The demon was shaking, wingtips trembling but voice resolute as he said, “You should know, this spell has been kept secret among demons for millennia…”

Kazariel closed the door.

 

~~***~~

 

On her second shift guarding the disused armoury, Kazariel had no choice but to listen as Samkiel pressured the prisoner further for his secrets. It was fairly quiet for the first ten minutes or so, the thick walls muffling their conversation. When the demon screamed, Kazariel jumped three inches and had her sword half out of its scabbard, not having expected the sound.

She hated this assignment. Well, not _hated_ , surely; as a rule, angels didn’t _hate_ anything. _Disliked_ was a better word. _Felt ambivalent towards_ was even better.

Mostly it was the screams.

The part of her that cried out that all of her Father’s creations were precious felt, for some inexplicable reason, that this goodwill should naturally extend even to demons. Kazariel knew this was preposterous; no other angels she had ever met felt this way. The Fallen were their greatest Adversaries; they had sinned to such an extreme that their Father had felt the need to cast them from Heaven for their wickedness.

The being screaming in agony in the building to her back was a wicked sort, she reminded herself often. He had likely committed similar atrocities in his time in Hell, and done so with relish. Kazariel remembered the Fall, albeit poorly, and knew that many good angels had been killed by the soon-to-be demons.

And _this_ demon, she reminded herself, had found a spell that could give him control over an angel. That was...catastrophic. Game-changing.

This logic still didn’t stop her from feeling a pang of sympathy, however, when she opened the door to let Samkiel out and saw the demon hanging limply in his shackles, dripping with blood and shivering violently.

He didn’t look like the type to invent a spell that could control angels, but maybe they never did.

 

~~***~~

 

Her third shift was almost entirely screaming and sobbing.

Near the end of her (blessedly short) assignment, Samkiel emerged from the armoury with three long, gleaming black feathers.

Kazariel carefully schooled her features into a respectful, blank expression as the dominion handed them to her. “Dispose of these when your replacement arrives,” Samkiel ordered.

“Yes, sir,” Kazariel agreed obediently. Samkiel nodded briskly.

“He shouldn’t hold out too much longer,” the dominion observed, addressing this not so much to Kazariel as to a point over her shoulder. “The might of Heaven will crush his wicked soul. If he must be brought to the brink of death over and over, until his spirit breaks and he cries for the end, it shall be done, to further the glory of our Father.”

“Yes, sir,” Kazariel said again, though with considerably less enthusiasm.

Samkiel nodded again, this time in a satisfied manner, turned, and strode down the white brick road.

Once he was gone, Kazariel let out an uncertain breath. She looked down at the feathers in her hands. Each one was longer than her entire arm, and the quill ran very near to one edge. She recognised them immediately as primaries, the grouping of long feathers nearest the leading edge of the wing. And the last three inches of each, near where the feathers had been forcibly ripped out by the roots, were soaked in blood.

Kazariel’s own wings burned in sympathy as her fingers ghosted over the glossy black vanes. No wonder the demon had been screaming so wretchedly. Primaries were practically fused to the bone at the manus, near the leading joint—the same joint Samkiel had driven that massive pin through.

She wouldn't have wished such pain on anyone.

Kazariel’s eyes strayed down the lengths of the feathers, unable to stop herself from admiring their glossy black sheen. The light scattered iridescent colours off the ebony vanes in much the same way that rainbows and starlight shimmered off her own gleaming white feathers, but the black backdrop alone rendered the whole effect mesmerising.

Kazariel’s hand closed around the feathers, knowing that she wasn’t about to “dispose of” them in any way Samkiel would approve of.

Pushing the question of what to do with the feathers to the back of her mind for now, Kazariel moved to the slightly ajar door Samkiel had so recently exited, planning on securing the seven locks as she did every time the prisoner was alone.

Her fingers paused on the top lock, about to push the door all the way closed and secure it. Then, her curiosity getting the better of her, she pulled the door open a few more inches instead and stuck her head through the opening.

The first thing that hit her was the smell. The whole room stank of blood and sweat and fear, the foul odour hanging heavy in the air like a cloud. Kazariel’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the semi-darkness, and when they did she felt a tremor of sympathy run through her.

The demon was still pinned against the far wall, head hanging forward and wings drooping limply. There were so many rivulets and smears of blood covering the Fallen angel that it was hard to tell he had come in wearing a sleek black outfit. Blood was still dripping down his feathers quite profusely, matting the vanes together, and the demon’s once-beautiful wings were ragged. It looked like every other primary had been pulled out, and those feathers that remained had been ruffled and pulled in the wrong directions, ruining the cohesive sheen that had so drawn her eye.

The Fallen angel appeared to be out cold, which was probably a mercy.

“Just tell them what you know,” she whispered softly, knowing the demon couldn’t hear her but feeling that something needed to be said anyway. “Just tell them the truth. For goodness’ sake, save yourself. You know how.”

Kazariel gazed at the still, wretched form of the tortured demon, and wondered bleakly what Hell must be like, that this creature would fear its retributions over that which Heaven was currently exacting.

The cherub’s lips thinned in uncertainty as she pulled her head back and set about locking the door.

 

~~***~~

 

On her fourth shift guarding the unfortunate prisoner, she was relieved when Samkiel failed to arrive.

Instead, she stood silently beside the door and admired the beauty of Heaven.

She was in the middle of musing over the easy elegance of the breeze when she heard a small noise. It was little more than a whispery cough, but it came again a moment later. It took Kazariel a minute to realise that the sound was coming from behind the door she guarded, and another to realise that the prisoner was crying.

Well, not crying in the sense that he was shedding tears, because it was commonly known that demons weren't able to do so, but crying in the sense that he was sobbing so hard he didn’t have time to breathe.

Kazariel shifted uncomfortably, but there was little she could do, and it wasn’t her place besides. Now that she thought about it, she realised she hadn’t even thought demons capable of feeling sorrow up until this moment, though self-pity probably wasn’t out of the question. None of the demons she’d run across in the old days had been predisposed to do much more than sneer and try to kill her.

She found herself wondering again why the demon didn’t just tell Samkiel how he’d bewitched the principality stationed on Earth. Presumably it was a very strategically valuable spell, but she wouldn’t have thought that the demon would put his loyalty to Hell over the chance to save his own skin—quite literally, in this instance.

Kazariel remembered when the fiend had been brought to the armoury, and how he had professed his ignorance. And she wondered suddenly if maybe the demon really _didn’t_ know anything. That would certainly explain his reluctance to talk—she wouldn’t have expected anyone to hold out after a week with Samkiel, and the demon had been here for twice as long as that already.

The cherub turned the idea over in her head a couple of times and then dismissed it. The principality Aziraphale had certainly been overpowered _somehow,_ and this fiend was the clear perpetrator. Something was going on; the demon must have just been threatened with something very nasty from Hell if he told anyone.

Pleased with having resolved the problem in her mind, Kazariel returned to gazing out over the hills and did her best to ignore the desperate, wretched sobs from the room behind her.

 

~~***~~

 

Kazariel stood to attention, pulling her hand off the hilt of her sword and dropping it to her side as Samkiel approached. This time, he wasn’t alone.

She wouldn’t have recognised the second angel except for the fact that all of Heaven had been abuzz about him for days. Very recently he, Aziraphale, Heaven’s official liaison to Earth, had returned from his post. Kazariel had unfortunately missed the stirring speech he had supposedly given to Michael and an assembly of their brothers and sisters, but she’d heard enough of it secondhand to piece together what had been said. The principality had evidently confirmed the existence of a spell placed over him by the demon, but explained that he had shaken it since the fiend was captured by Heaven, and was now ready to avenge himself upon the creature that had undoubtedly caused him to do terrible and wicked deeds.

Seeing him now, Kazariel wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but this wasn’t it. The principality was shorter than she’d been picturing, for one, and rounder. He was also wearing some sort of soft-looking patterned tunic that must be the current style on Earth. She might have thought that this wasn’t the same angel she’d been hearing stories of, except for his bearing.

The principality was _furious_. Kazariel could feel the anger rolling off him from seven metres away, just short of manifesting itself physically. She had to exercise a fair amount of will to keep herself from shrinking back instinctively, reminding herself that the principality’s anger wasn’t directed at her.

Kazariel felt a pang of unease at the thought of unleashing this livid force on the poor, tortured soul hanging helplessly in the room behind her, but knew it was not her place to protest.

Instead, she set about unsealing the seven locks in time to open the door just as Samkiel and Aziraphale arrived.

The principality cast her a calculating glance as he passed; Samkiel didn’t even deign to do that much.

Once the two angels had swept into the room, Kazariel carefully closed the door after them and returned to her post. Though Aziraphale himself had confirmed that the demon had discovered a spell that could control angels, she still couldn’t shake the feeling that revenge, no matter how righteous, was never the answer. Especially not on someone who had suffered so much already.

Not that her opinion mattered, she reminded herself; what she thought was irrelevant. She did as she was told, and had risen this far in the ranks because of it. Their Father let His ineffable will be known to the archangels, and they directed the actions of her superiors and on down to her. It was how she knew she was doing the right and proper thing.

Not very much time had passed at all before there was a muffled cry from the room, followed by a dull thud and then silence.

Kazariel kept her eyes straight forward, wondering what unfortunate things lay in store for the ill-treated demon. She hoped that, if Aziraphale planned on killing him, he would at least do it quickly.

The thought had scarcely crossed her mind when there was an abrupt, agonising scream from behind her. It broke off with a hoarse sob and fell below the volume level she was able to hear through the thick door.

A moment later there was another, softer cry, and then silence. Kazariel shifted on her feet, trying to shake the feeling that she shouldn’t just stand by as anyone, even a wicked, mind-controlling demon, was treated in such a manner.

There was a long period of near-silence in which Kazariel half-convinced herself that everything was fine, and she was guarding Heaven’s throne room like usual.

Then, unexpectedly, the door opened. Kazariel started and turned smartly; Samkiel usually took at least fifteen minutes. It had been barely five. Aziraphale slipped through the doorway and pushed the door almost shut behind him, so it was only ajar an inch or two.

The principality looked vastly less furious than he had only minutes ago; he was no longer almost glowing with excess energy, for one thing. In fact, the angel had adopted an almost apologetic expression.

“Hello. Sorry, I was just wondering if I could possibly borrow your sword?”

Kazariel gazed at the lower-ranking angel, perplexed. She had already half-drawn her weapon, intending on giving it to the principality, when she thought to ask, “Why?”

The moment the words left her lips she knew it was the wrong thing to say; angels didn’t question orders, and even if Aziraphale was only a principality, he was currently working with (and thereby invested with the authority of) Samkiel, who _did_ outrank her. She would be severely rebuked for this, certainly; maybe even taken off this special assignment.

Instead, Aziraphale only gave her a weak smile. “Well, you see, we’re really, er, getting at it with dear Cr—that is, the  _horrible_ demon, and thought a sword would really do the trick.”

Kazariel only stared at him for a moment, torn between horror and relief. She handed the sword over without a second thought. She was so distracted trying to determine how best to thank the principality for his discretion that she didn’t see Aziraphale bringing the hilt down on her head until it was too late.

 

~~***~~

 

When Kazariel woke next, her head was pounding.

She blinked her eyes open, realising as she did so that she was sprawled on the ground beside the building she’d been sworn to guard.

She sat up quickly, miracling away the throbbing bruise on her temple with a thought. Her hand automatically went to her sword, only to remember that she no longer had it.

Her head swung around, and it was then that she realised that almost no time must have passed, because the treacherous principality was _still here_.

Aziraphale was less than ten metres away, hurrying towards the corner of the old armoury. His huge white wings were spread behind him, and one was hovering worriedly near the far shoulder of the slim dark figure beside him. She could see that the demon was leaning heavily against Aziraphale, long ebony wings dragging on the ground behind him, little more than a mess of dark feathers that left scarlet streaks in the emerald grass.

Kazariel stared after them as they vanished around the corner, mouth gaping open slightly.

She should sound the alarm.

She knew she should. Better yet, she should get to her feet and run after them; she could easily overpower the demon, and he was the only one she’d been charged to guard.

But several thoughts were presenting themselves to her in quick succession.

The first was the way the demon had leaned slackly against the principality, letting himself be led away from the site of his compul—torture. She should call it what it was.

The second was the protective wing Aziraphale had wrapped around the fiend, and the fact that he had clearly knocked her out in order to rescue the demon.

The third was that there was no way Aziraphale had been doing all that while under the influence of the spell the demon had supposedly cast over him. She remembered his fury, and wondered now if it hadn’t been directed at the demon at all. She sincerely doubted that level of emotion could have been elicited by a spell, and that was if the demon had somehow managed to maintain his control even while in Heaven’s hands.

The fourth was that she didn’t particularly want to stop them.

For a long moment Kazariel just sat there, fighting an inner struggle. Every ounce of grace and mercy in her wanted to let the poor demon go, but everything she’d ever been taught or told demanded that she do her duty and recapture the prisoner she had been assigned to guard.

In the end, she sat there long enough that her decision was made for her, with a blare of trumpets in the distance. Someone else had sounded the alarm.

Kazariel stood up slowly and dusted herself off. Then, feigning ignorance of which way the fugitives had gone, she poked her head into the disused armoury.

Off to the side, she was a little surprised to see Samkiel lying on the floor, wings spread, a huge red circle creeping over the floor beneath him. She could tell he was gone even from this distance and, though she felt an automatic twinge of respectful sorrow, she could not actually bring herself to feel sorry about it.

As a rule, angels don’t hate or even dislike other angels, but there are some that many certainly feel ambivalent towards.


	2. The Sweet Insomniac

After the news spread of the principality’s unexpected rescue of the demon—Kazariel had since learned his name was Crowley—and his subsequent Fall, Heaven was in chaos. No angel had Fallen in six thousand years, and some had posited that it wasn't even possible anymore. For Aziraphale to have Fallen like he had, he must have sinned so grievously that God Himself had struck him down.

The thing was, Hell wasn’t gloating about it. Above had certainly advertised their glorious capture of a demonic fiend, but Below didn’t seem interested in doing the same in return. A demon had escaped Heaven in the company of an angel he had tempted to _Fall_ , and Hell wasn’t blaring the ghastly news on every available channel.

In fact, it was business as usual. That probably should have scared Heaven more than it did.

After three solid days of nothing out of the ordinary, Heaven started sending angels to Earth, trying to determine what exactly had happened. The best theory they formed what that the two fugitives had gone into hiding somewhere on Earth, avoiding Heaven for obvious reasons and Hell for reasons not so certain but doubtlessly nefarious.

A week after Aziraphale’s already-infamous Fall, Michael and the other archangels set an official policy. Since their Father hadn’t got in touch to make His wishes clearly known, they decided that Aziraphale must have committed an unforgivable crime, since He had personally intervened and caused him to Fall. The principality _had_ killed almost a dozen other angels, after all—a dozen of Kazariel’s brothers and sisters, many innocent and unarmed. It made her feel sick to even think about.

So Michael proclaimed a manhunt for the Fallen angel Aziraphale, decreeing that he had sinned greatly and offended God Himself, and was to be smote as any other demon. The caveat was that, since Hell didn’t seem to know what had happened, they needed to keep it from reaching diabolical ears. It was imperative that Hell not realise that Heaven’s prison was less than airtight, or that another angel had Fallen.

That meant no sweeping over the Earth in great bands, flying wingtip to wingtip with armour flashing. That meant no appearing to the mortals in bursts of divine light, demanding they divulge the necessary information.

No, it meant Kazariel sitting outside a coffee shop for eighteen years, staring at a bookshop.

To be fair, the coffee shop also sold delightful little chocolates, and it hadn’t always been a chocolate and coffee shop. When Kazariel had first worked out how to arrange matters so that she could stay in one of the upstairs rooms in return for a measure of the human concept of currency, the shop had sold books and magazines depicting nude or semi-nude humans in uncomfortable-looking positions. After that, the shop had briefly offered the services of a tailor before being bought by the current owners of The Sweet Insomniac Chocolate and Coffee House. But that was years later.

Kazariel had only been on Earth for a week, loitering day and night without sleep outside the adult bookshop, when several men in strange uniforms entered the principality’s darkened bookshop. She stayed where she was on the opposite side of the street, squinting suspiciously at the intruders. She could tell that they were human, but she wasn’t sure what they were doing. When they started hauling boxes out of the shop, she walked across the street and confronted two of them.

The men, who were from some sort of “moving company,” explained that they’d been hired to transport several boxes of books for the gentleman who lived there to his new residence, as well as relocate something called a “vintage automobile.” Kazariel’s interest flared, and she demanded to know where this new residence was.

The man she had cornered—his partner had fled early in the questioning, mortals were like that—waffled and didn’t want to say, claiming that he had been paid well for his silence, but a gentle, reassuring touch on his shoulder convinced him otherwise. The majority of the books, he told her, were going to the city of Denvercolorado—wherever that was—and a few of the others to the town of Fletcher in a land called Vermont.

Delighted, Kazariel returned to the adult bookshop, demanded to be taken to a private room, and relayed this news immediately to Heaven. The bored-sounding principality on the other end of the line listened to her excited explanation and then put her on hold. Twenty-five minutes later, the principality came back on the line and informed her that angels would be sent to these places to find the criminals, but that she was to remain guarding the bookshop for further developments, or until the renegades were caught.

Kazariel waited patiently for days, and then weeks, and then months, and still no news came from Heaven.

Which left her a lot of time to herself, and to watch the humans. Kazariel had last been on Earth during the birth of Christ, some two thousand years distant. Suffice it to say that it had changed a bit.

How Aziraphale had ever managed to survive on the planet for six thousand years mystified her. Kazariel had only made it this far by the kindness of others and a good deal of miracled money, which had come quite a ways since thirty pieces of silver had changed hands.

Though Kazariel had often looked down upon the Earth, idly watching the humans’ clever new creations, she had never put any serious thought into how their societies functioned or how anything actually _worked_. She’d been happily stationed as a guard in Heaven for millennia, and had expected to continue carrying out those duties for millennia more.

But now she was here, immersed in this utter _insanity_ , and it was all because of _Aziraphale._

Following his Fall with the demon Crowley, Zadkiel had relayed to her the displeasure of not only the archangel Jophiel, who was in charge of all of Heaven’s guards and gatekeepers, but Michael himself. She had been the one on guard when the snake-eyed demon had escaped, and had lost her flaming sword to boot, and was therefore to be punished for her failure. She had been demoted (Michael had wanted to make her a lowly principality, but Zadkiel had kindly pled on her behalf and reduced her demotion to that of a throne, only one step below her previous rank of cherub) and sent to Earth to guard the last known residence of the traitor Aziraphale, in case he should return there.

At first Kazariel had been terrified, though of course she had taken her demotion with grace. But Earth was where the demons crawled, enticing the humans to wanton violence. After the initial flash of terror, her fear turned to anger. The Earth was loud and busy and smelly and confusing, and she hated—ahem, felt _very ambivalent_ about it. She missed her flaming sword and her brothers and sisters and guarding Heaven and all its beauty.

But then the rather musty-smelling owner of the “adult bookshop” had noticed her loitering and kindly offered her a room. He seemed rather surprised when she continued staying there after the first night, but she managed to continue the arrangement and eventually carried it over between owners of the shop. And for the next eighteen years she stared across the street and watched the dust accumulate on the bookshelves inside of Ezra Fell’s Old and Rare Books.

She did not know who or what an Ezra Fell was, but she knew this was the hideout of the Fallen angel that had taken her from her happy home to this strange and confusing new world.

To be fair, it wasn’t all bad. After the first decade she started to feel a little more at home, and successfully picked up most of the human customs. Coffee was an unexpected blessing, and chocolate was simply a stroke of genius.

After eleven years of watching, Kazariel plucked up her courage and entered the bookshop.

It had been searched by a group of her brothers and sisters sometime before her demotion, and either they or the men from the moving company hadn’t cleaned up properly before leaving.

Several books were lying scattered on the floor, and a chair near the back had been knocked over. Kazariel picked her way carefully through the mess, placing the fallen books back on their shelves and righting the chair automatically. She cast her eyes around the space, taking it in.

It wasn’t anything like she’d imagined the lair of a soon-to-Fall angel would be. In fact, it was peaceful. Almost angelic.

Kazariel walked through the shop and up a set of stairs in the back, finding a room where two chairs were pulled up next to a small table piled with books. Two teacups sat on saucers nearby, and a dusty brown residue lined their insides. One of the books was open, pages expectant and waiting.

Kazariel took in the scene, thinking it odd that the Fallen angel would have needed two teacups. She looked again at the chair across the table, half-pushed away as though someone had left to do something briefly and never returned. Had Aziraphale been entertaining company?

The former cherub shook off the thoughts and continued through the old bookshop’s upper floor, finding a dusty lavatory and a room with a bed that looked like it had never been slept in. Well, maybe not _never_ slept in. The pillow had a decidedly rumpled look, and a pair of what she now knew were called sunglasses were lying forgotten on the corner of the disused dresser.

Kazariel drifted forward and tapped the smooth plastic frames pensively, frowning down at them. Though she’d seen plenty of humans wearing sunglasses on her time here on Earth, she hadn’t expected Aziraphale to be one of them.

Kazariel turned to go, and as she did so she caught sight of a dark shape on the back of the door. She swung the door further closed, revealing a dark suit jacket hanging on a hook on the back side. Frowning again, Kazariel carefully pulled the jacket free, feeling the fine material under her hands. She held it up, noticing immediately that it was too small for the treacherous Fallen angel. A moment later she recalled with surprising clarity an image of the demon Crowley awaiting his fate outside the disused armoury, standing unafraid in his dark suit and sunglasses.

Had Kazariel yet discovered the concept of gambling, she would have bet her favourite spear that this jacket belonged to the snake-eyed demon.

But what had _he_ been doing _here?_ This was the Fallen angel’s residence. She had been assured of that. Kazariel looked at the jacket, baffled. Between this and the sunglasses...her mind went back to the two teacups, and the two chairs at the table.

Zadkiel had explained to her before her reassignment that the archangels no longer believed the demon had placed a spell over Aziraphale. If he had truly been under the control of the demon when he killed their brethren, he wouldn’t have Fallen, as his heart would still have been pure. That meant that he must have been tempted by the demon in some other way, or else simply had a darker heart than any of them had suspected.

As Kazariel carefully hung the jacket back up on its hook, she wondered suddenly if perhaps the angel and demon had come to some sort of...mutual understanding. If the demon Crowley had indeed been _sleeping_ in this room at some point or another, as the sunglasses and jacket in an otherwise barren room seemed to indicate, certainly Aziraphale would have noticed the defenceless demon snoozing in his residence. And yet...Aziraphale hadn’t smote him. That was baffling in and of itself.

Or maybe, not so baffling after all. Kazariel remembered guarding the demon while Samkiel urged him to confess; she remembered his screams all too well. She hadn’t particularly wished the demon harm then, either, defenceless as he was.

The concept of friendship was not alien to angels; Kazariel understood it and even called some of her own colleagues friends. She knew that the idea of an angel and a demon being anything less than absolute enemies should have horrified her. Instead, she couldn’t find it in her heart to condemn it.

Her mind went back to Heaven, and the look of pure fury on Aziraphale’s face as he’d entered the room where the demon was being held. She remembered how the soon-to-Fall principality had later vanished around the edge of the armoury, and the way the demon had sagged against him beneath a protective wing.

For an angel to risk Falling to rescue a demon from Heaven’s hands...they must have had quite the arrangement.

Kazariel gazed at the jacket blankly, her other hand still resting on the edge of the door. She thought of her friends back in Heaven; Nimoniel was probably her closest, but if she had been captured by Hell, Kazariel severely doubted the other cherub would have come after her, unless it had been expressly ordered. She doubted even Zadkiel liked her enough to give the order; the possibility of losing more angels would have been too high. And if Nimoniel had been captured...Kazariel would have grieved, certainly, but never even _considered_ rescuing her single-handedly.

Whatever sort of friendship this pair—the demon and the angel, now mutually Fallen—must have had...it must have been wonderful. To care that deeply about another creature, to express so fully that singular emotion their Father had always championed; she simply couldn’t believe that He would have felt it wrong. And, though she knew none of her colleagues or superiors would agree, she didn’t feel it was wrong either.

 

~~***~~

 

_The Present_

 

Kazariel absently took a sip of her iced latte, savouring the sweet chocolate. As much as she could tell so far, chocolate iced lattes were humanity’s best invention. Either that or trousers. Robes had been quite problematic back in the day. Sand had ended up absolutely _everywhere_ , to not even start with the problems involved with _wind_.

Eighteen years had come and gone, and the Fallen angel and the demon had still not returned to the bookshop.

At this point, Kazariel would be very surprised if they returned at all. She had expected to have heard _something_ from Heaven about the whereabouts of the fugitives by now, but there was...nothing. No sign of them anywhere. It was as though they had vanished from the face of the Earth itself. But neither were they in Heaven, or presumably in Hell (Below did like to gloat), so Kazariel remained on Earth, watching the bookshop.

She didn’t mind the task so much anymore. She had grown slightly more accustomed to living among the humans, and though she still deeply missed Heaven, she no longer felt like a stranger here. The one thing she would have liked was to see more of the world, now that she knew generally how to navigate it. In her time watching the bookshop, she had never strayed out of the area known locally as “Soho.” She was aware that this Soho was part of a larger metropolis called “London,” and that this was part of a region known as “England.” But she had flown over the planet enough times to know that the island she was on was tiny in comparison to what else remained to be seen. If the Sohoians had invented chocolate iced lattes and trousers, what wonders had the rest created?

But she was not to know. She had to watch the bookshop, and apprehend the traitors if they ever returned. Her orders were crystal clear on that point, and she did not intend on getting demoted again. Kazariel had gone so far as to write a letter and send it to Michael via one of Gabriel’s people manning the line to Heaven, explaining that she had experience on the ground now and believed that the fugitives would not be so foolish as to return to the area, and that she thought she could be of better service elsewhere, perhaps actively searching the Earth for them. Michael had responded over a month later with a single word from the mouth of the same angel who had passed on her initial request: “No.”

Since then, Kazariel’s thoughts towards the archangel had become rather uncharitable. No—decidedly ambivalent.

Kazariel was again contemplating the glorious leader of the archangels and exactly where she thought he could stick his response, when she felt a gentle tap on her shoulder. She jumped in her seat and looked up, ethereal wings half-opening behind her in alarm, hand automatically going to the hilt of a sword that hadn’t been there for almost two decades.

But it was only a kind-looking, middle-aged man with an easy smile and a clerical collar. “Sorry, I was just asking if you’d mind if I sat with you?” The priest indicated the chair opposite her.

The Sweet Insomniac had several small tables set up on the pavement outside of their shop, and, as the angel looked around her quickly, she realised that all of the other seats were filled. She blinked; she didn’t remember it having been so busy when she sat down.

“Of course,” Kazariel said, giving the man a quick smile. The only minister of the faith she had encountered so far was the balding one fifteen years ago who’d tried to “rescue” her from the “hedonist lies” and “manipulative sinners” who ran the adult bookshop. She was still trying to puzzle that one out.

“Many thanks,” the priest said, taking the seat opposite her. He took a sip from the cup of to-go coffee in his hand and nodded appreciatively. “I always thought that coffee was one of this world’s greatest strengths,” he said, a note of fondness in his voice. “What do you think of it?”

Kazariel shrugged and nodded. “I like it. It certainly helps keep the hu—everyone in a good mood.” She caught herself and made the correction quickly; she’d noticed that the humans usually acted strangely and excused themselves whenever she called them by their species name, and it was dreadfully tedious to have to track them down again later.

If the priest noticed her slip, he didn’t show it, instead looking pensively at his coffee. “Yes, I suppose it does,” he said, and then switched his gaze to the former cherub, giving her a relaxed smile. “So what’s someone like you doing in a place like this, hm?”

Kazariel turned the question over quickly in her mind, trying to figure out what exactly the priest was asking. Humans could be ever so nonspecific. “Er...I live here,” she settled on at last, gesturing to the chocolate and coffee shop behind her. “Above the shop.”

The priest nodded and seemed to accept her answer, so she decided she must have said the correct thing; she filed the information away for future use. The priest took another sip of his coffee and hummed contentedly to himself; Kazariel took one of her own and started chasing the ice around the edge of the glass with her straw.

“I sense you are unhappy about something,” the priest said after a companionable silence. “Perhaps your work?”

Kazariel gave a short, nervous laugh, though there was little humour in it; if it was obvious to this human priest, surely Michael and Zadkiel would notice immediately. “I love my work,” she said, though her voice could have been more enthusiastic.

The priest tilted his head and smiled, in a fatherly manner. “I suspected as much. You realise it is perfectly all right for you to...feel ambivalent about your work?”

Kazariel shook her head. “Not this work. It’s very important.”

“I’m sure it is,” the priest said mildly, glancing casually over at the bookshop. Kazariel followed his gaze.

“Er,” she said, and took a sip of her latte a little too quickly, choking on the chilled liquid.

“You know,” the priest said once she had recovered, “sometimes when my work gets to be a little much, I like to go fishing.”

Kazariel blinked at him and nudged her latte a few inches further away from her, where it would be less tempting. “But you’re a man of God!” she protested. “God’s work is the most important.”

The priest smiled at her. “Well, yes, but even God gets a little tired of doing the same old thing day in and day out after a while, don't you think? And I find that fishing is an excellent way to...see Creation from a different point of view. Have you ever gone fishing?”

Kazariel shook her head. “I’ve never really left—er, London,” she said, remembering the odd looks she usually got when she explained that she hadn’t set foot outside Soho for eighteen years.

The priest nodded knowingly. “It’s a remarkable pastime. Or might I recommend just taking a trip, and getting out of the city? Fresh air does a person wonders. I would personally recommend Canterbury or Dover; it’s a pleasant part of the country.”

Kazariel latched onto the unfamiliar names with a sudden longing. “Canterbury,” she repeated. “What’s there?”

The priest smiled and settled into a more comfortable position in his chair. “Well,” he began, in the tone of voice of someone who knows everything there is to know about Canterbury but doesn’t want to overwhelm his conversational partner with too much all at once. “There’s a lovely cathedral, for starters. Humanity really does outdo itself sometimes. It’s been a very holy city, historically, and Dover has some beautiful white cliffs, if I do say so myself.” The priest coloured slightly, but Kazariel was too busy looking over at the bookshop to notice.

“And it’s a very short trip there,” the priest continued persuasively. “You could be there and back in a day. And I’m sure it would make you feel much better about how things are for you. It’s good to see the world up close and in person; watching from afar is just no fun at all.”

Kazariel found herself nodding, and looked back over at the priest. He was right, she realised, and the thought of taking a day off to do what _she_ wanted to do was very tempting. But her sense of duty nagged at her still. Zadkiel, and through him Jophiel and Michael, and through them her Father, had told her to guard the bookshop, and guard it she would.

The priest must have noticed her reluctance, because he leaned forward to pat her on the hand comfortingly. “Look, if you want to go, how about I stay? I’m sure I can keep an eye on things here until you get back; you have my word.” The priest motioned to his clerical collar and gave her a reassuring smile.

Kazariel looked at the priest’s open, honest expression, hope spreading through her. Though her Father seemed to have left Heaven largely to its own devices, there had been speculation that He was spending time on Earth among His creations. It therefore seemed entirely feasible to Kazariel that this human priest might have a better grasp of His wishes than she did. Also, following instructions from a priest might please Him, and she needed all the help she could get to return to His good graces and hopefully be reinstated as a cherub. “Oh, are you sure?”

The priest smiled. “I am certain everything will work out for the best, in the end.”

Kazariel beamed at him, already working out the logistics of a quick flight to this “Canterbury” place, thinking that there was no need for Zadkiel or Jophiel or Michael or anybody to ever find out about this.

“The weather tomorrow’s supposed to be great in Canterbury,” the priest said mildly, and across the country several confused weathermen blinked at their radars and wondered where the storm system headed their way had gone.

“Tomorrow…” Kazariel breathed, “sounds great.” What were the odds of the Fallen angel and his demonic cohort returning on that particular day, anyway? Everything would be fine.

“Thank you,” Kazariel said to the priest, who had stood up, taking his half-finished coffee with him.

“Happy to help,” he said cheerfully, and patted her on the shoulder. “Good work.”

Kazariel might have thought this comment out of place were she not so consumed in her own thoughts.

And then the priest was gone. Kazariel went back into the coffee shop a moment later, intent on finding someone who knew where Canterbury was.

She left early the next morning, heading south and east and coincidentally moving steadily away from where a demon with mostly-white wings and a dying human were singing Queen loudly and very off-key while driving towards Soho in a car that smelled like cats and herbal tea.

For them, it would be Aziraphale’s last good day; for Kazariel, it would be her first.


End file.
